Trickbox

TRICKBOX

In the IPP contest back in 2003 the Czeck craftsman Vaclav Obsivac entered 3 different puzzles of which I already reviewed one (TRITRESOR) and one (surprise) still to come once it is solved. The missing third one is for review today and is called TRICKBOX. I bought mine directly at Vin&Co for Euro 24,00 only. As expected meanwhile the puzzle is superbly made out of different coloured woods and very precisely crafted.

The target is to take the puzzle apart and put it back together. Vaclav rated this design a 4 out of 6 in terms of difficulty which I generally agree on. In contrary to the last IPP puzzle reviewed from him - the Procross - it now took me just less than 5 minutes to take it apart but then I really had issues to put it back in its initial state. This took me about 45 minutes alone although I generally knew how to do it. The difficulty with this puzzle lies with the way of putting it back together. The puzzles I already have from him are coordinated motion puzzles and although TRICKBOX consists out of 6 identical parts I could not do it with a coordinated motion (I believe this would really be an achievment!) and therefore I had to also work extremely precise to put it back together and I just got it on the 30th try (just a feeling).

TRICKBOX is again a highly recommended puzzle for everyone because you should buy it alone for its beauty! Non-experienced puzzlers will get it apart for sure but will certainly have issues to put it back together (after solving mine I had a look on the solution sheet to see whether Vaclav would do it with coordinated motion and whilst the solution was different to what I did it is no coordinated motion used as well).